


Ghost

by HashtagLEH



Series: Something Like a Family [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Hargrove & Eleven | Jane Hopper Friendship, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Billy Hargrove Tries to Be a Better Person, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Gen, Halloween, Homophobic Language, Jim "Chief" Hopper Tries, Period-Typical Homophobia, Protective Billy Hargrove, Protective Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper, Sad Eleven | Jane Hopper, Slurs, Soft Billy Hargrove, but then she cheers up don't worry, this is not a sad fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HashtagLEH/pseuds/HashtagLEH
Summary: Billy did not sign up to take a little girl trick-or-treating, but she looked so sad and lonely in that cabin by herself and before he knew it he was walking beside a little ghost in a cozy little neighborhood on the edge of Hawkins, wondering why he wasn't as irritated as he should be about this development.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & Billy Hargrove
Series: Something Like a Family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009263
Comments: 15
Kudos: 152





	Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> The muse has struck. This 'verse is going to veer from canon quite a bit. I'm so excited. >:)
> 
> You've gotta read the first fic in the series for this one to make sense. Or at least skim it for the gist of how they met and everything attached to that.

Billy had planned on checking in on El on Monday. Weekends meant chores, meant Billy had to walk on eggshells because Neil was home the whole time and would ask too many questions if Billy disappeared already. Monday was okay because it was Neil’s first day of work, and after Max and Billy were registered for school they wouldn’t be able to go a full day until Tuesday, so Neil hadn’t cared if they waited until then, just so long as Billy “kept Max out of trouble”. (Which was really code for “I’ll beat your ass if you step a toe out of line”, but that was neither here nor there.)

So Billy knew that Monday he would be free, would drop Max off at the arcade after dealing with school shit and then be good to wander on his own until they were expected back before Neil got home from work.

But then Max started spouting shit again about leaving California on the way to the arcade, and he was so pissed at his step sister that he didn’t totally trust himself around a little girl much more fragile than Max, and so he spent his free time getting high at the quarry. He could see El the next day, not a big deal.

But then Tuesday didn’t work either, because Neil was in a mood when he came home from work because he’d forgotten his lunch and decided to blame everyone else for it. He’d come home early, so that he could eat an earlier dinner, and would have to stay later the next day to make up for it and because he was a lazy piece of shit he was upset about that. He was already home when Billy had gone to drop off Max after school, and so Billy hadn’t even tried to disappear, deciding to claim homework so that he could stay in his room and not give reason to piss Neil off further. He avoided being hit that day, but he wasn’t in the mood to risk any of the painful repercussions that would come if Neil decided to check in on him and find him gone, so he stuck to writing the essay for his English class that wasn’t due till Friday but he figured he could get a head start on anyway when he had the time.

On Wednesday the mystery had faded somewhat with the rest of Hawkins High, and some kid named Tommy H and his girlfriend Carol latched onto him, telling him about a Halloween party at some girl named Tammy’s house that night. Billy didn’t have a costume, but he knew that Neil would rather he went to keep up appearances for normality’s sake in this new town, so he accepted and figured he’d throw something together. Hopefully Max wouldn’t kick up a fuss about trick-or-treating by herself, because he was _not_ in the mood for screaming kids.

He wanted to escape school earlier, try and figure out something for the party so that he could check in on El beforehand and still have enough time to drive to the other side of town before he was showing up to the party so late that everyone was too drunk to notice. But Max was taking _forever_ , and it put him in a bad mood already when she rolled up to the car with a scowl on her face.

“You’re late again,” he reminded her, because she’d been late the day before too and he _really_ didn’t want this to become a habit. Not when her lateness could be used against him at any point Neil decided and Billy wouldn’t see it coming. God, did she even _realize_ that she was the one holding his leash for Neil? Probably not, the stupid bitch.

“Yeah, I had to get catch-up homework,” she said, opening the passenger door, and even without seeing her face he knew she was lying. She had never been a good liar – not to him, at least. He didn’t bother calling her on it though – it didn’t really matter.

“Jesus, I don’t _care_ ,” he scoffed, because he really didn’t. Neil wouldn’t. “You’re late again, and you’re skating home. Do you hear me?”

Max didn’t answer – not that he expected her to – and he took a last drag from his cigarette before tossing it aside and going to the driver’s side door, climbing inside.

It was quiet in the car for the first several minutes of the drive, only his rock music playing through the speakers. It was quiet enough that conversation was possible though, and so after some time he said almost absently, “God, this place is such a shithole.” The smell was getting to him – the smell of manure that he couldn’t escape, and he couldn’t complain about it in the house where Neil or Susan might hear, and Max had agreed when he’d said the same thing when they’d approached the town Thursday evening when they’d moved in. He expected the same agreement then, or at the very least the silence that had primarily followed them for the past three weeks.

But then Max said, almost like she was offended, “It’s not that bad.”

And Billy just turned to her in disbelief and said, “No?” He reached to roll down her window, the smell of manure outside instantly becoming about ninety times stronger. Mockingly, he said, “ _Mmmm_ ,” and plugged his nose. “You smell that, Max? That’s _actually_ shit. Cow shit.”

“I don’t see any cows,” Max said carelessly, annoyed, closing the window again.

And she was right, the cows only _surrounded_ the town, those stupid fucking farms that reeked through the year and apparently this wasn’t even the worst time of year with the smell. But he didn’t care to concede her point – not that a good point had been _made_ – and so he just said sarcastically, “Clearly, you haven’t met the high school girls.”

It was another dig at what had happened – at what she’d revealed he _was_ , because he was about as attracted to girls as he was to _actual_ cows – and she clearly caught that, because her jaw clenched in that familiar way it had been any time he brought up what an utter _idiot_ and _bitch_ she’d been when she’d done what she had. She didn’t say anything though, and it abruptly just pissed him off _more_ , because he wanted to fight again, because she never really said what she _actually_ thought about what had happened, just kept fucking _apologizing_ and making excuses, and he couldn’t forgive her _ever_ , but especially not when she wouldn’t even admit that she thought he was disgusting now and that she was glad Neil had found out about it.

So he pressed harder, saying, “So what, you like it here now?”

“No,” Max said, and just like before, he could hear the lie.

“Then why are you defending it?” he demanded.

“I’m _not_ ,” Max insisted stubbornly.

“Sure sounds like it,” Billy said, lighter than before, because they both knew that he knew she was lying, so what was the point in continuing this fiction?

“It’s just…” she searched for words, settling on, “We’re stuck here, so…”

“Hmm,” Billy said stonily. “You’re right. We’re stuck here.” He looked over at her, daringly, because she had yet to admit – “And whose fault is that?”

“Yours,” he heard the muttered word, too quiet to be considered full volume, but just loud enough that he heard. He’s pretty sure that she’d meant for him to hear it.

And he was furious. He was so _livid_ at her continual blame for the move out here, because it wasn’t _his_ fault she’d blurted his faggot ways where Neil could hear. He was fucking another boy, so what? It wasn’t affecting _anyone_ else, and if Max had kept her _damn_ nose out of his business, even if she’d been able to fucking _pretend_ that she thought Harry was just his friend or classmate from school, they would still be in California, not in this _shithole_ of a town that Billy was certain Neil had chosen so that he could hear the goings-on of his faggot son more immediately, everyone as close knit and gossipy as they were.

“What’d you say?” he said dangerously, tightening his hands on the steering wheel.

“Nothing,” she muttered resentfully.

“Did you say it’s my fault?” he demanded, even though they both knew she had.

“No,” she said more loudly, clearly already regretting her words, but Billy didn’t care whether they were spoken or thought. If she really believed it was _his_ fault –

“You know whose fault it is,” Billy said, staring straight ahead at the road, not really seeing it, just seeing the fearful look on Harry’s face when Neil had advanced on him, the apologetic look at Billy before he ran away without a glance back, leaving Billy alone to his father’s anger and violence.

It was that look, on the face of the last boy he’d really cared about even a little bit, that he held in his mind when he looked at her and said stonily, “Say it.”

She stayed silent, staring down at her knees, jaw clenched.

“ _Max_ …” he drew out like a tease, but he could still hear the threat, the underlying fury in his own voice. “Say it.”

She stared straight ahead, her eyes beginning to shine, and that made him more furious than anything, because how _dare_ she? She wasn’t the one who’d been beaten so hard she’d lost consciousness, who still got headaches from loud noises and too much sun, who still had to watch that the split skin on his lower back didn’t reopen and was held accountable for the actions of a shithead younger sister. What the hell reason did _she_ have to be crying for? How _dare_ she?

“ _Say it!_ ” he yelled at her, right next to her ear, and he got vindictive pleasure when she flinched away, ignored the sick feeling in his stomach that accompanied it.

Fuck it. He wasn’t going to get any version of a real apology or admission of guilt out of her. He slammed his foot on the gas pedal, because he just wanted to get her the fuck _home_ and _out_ of his car, where he could go deal with someone who _didn’t_ make him feel like ripping his hair out with every conversation. He didn’t care about the winding roads that he couldn’t see around – he dared the land to give him a surprise, something that would _really_ hurt him, because it was the only way to slow him down now that he just wanted the fuck _out of here_.

And apparently the world was listening, because he noticed the kids riding on bikes wearing some sort of nerdy costumes on the road ahead of him just as Max did, and he was going to slow down, because he didn’t really want to _kill_ anyone, but then Max said, “Billy, slow down!” and he was feeling very contrary in respect to the bitch so he maintained his steady eighty miles per hour.

“Oh,” he said sarcastically, “These your new hick friends?”

He didn’t really think she would know them, but then the way she said, “No! I don’t know them,” told him that she really did, because as stated before, she was a terrible liar.

“I guess you won’t care if I hit ‘em, then?” he dared further, drawing closer to the dorks. He kept his hands poised on the steering wheel to jerk away, just as soon as Max stopped _lying_ to him. “I get bonus points, if I get ‘em all in one go?”

“No, Billy, _stop_. It’s not funny,” Max insisted, turning in her seat to look at him.

He gave her a dry look, because honestly, what the hell was she playing at? This wasn’t a _joke_ – he was insisting that she tell him the truth, and they both knew it; was that too much to ask?

Apparently for this bitch, it was.

He pressed harder on the gas, just enough to sound like he was going much faster, and affected carelessness as Max kept insisting for him to stop. Honestly, had she never heard of playing chicken before? She sounded honestly afraid that he would actually run over these dweebs, as though they were even worth the jail time.

He sighed mentally to himself, beginning to yank the wheel just he deemed it too close to risk, and Max had apparently judged the same, because she reached over at the same time to jerk the wheel along with him, swerving into the oncoming lane for a moment before pulling back as they went into their lane.

“Yeah, that was a close one, huh?!” Billy yelled like he was invigorated. Max ignored him, spinning around to look out the rear window at the dweebs who had swerved into the leaves, and he laughed at the worry because honestly she was so fucking overdramatic.

“What the _hell_ , Billy, you could’ve _killed_ them!” she yelled at him as soon as they’d rounded the bend and she could no longer see them.

“Oh, fuck you, Maxine,” he spat at her. “Like I _really_ would’ve hit them. I drove in LA – this backwoods shitstain is _nothing_.”

“This is _not_ LA!” she yelled.

“And don’t we all know it,” Billy snapped. “At least in LA I didn’t have to cart you around like a damn _child_. Now, shut up before I shove you out of this car myself.”

Max settled into her seat, still quietly angry and outraged, but he didn’t care. Let her be angry. She might reach a small _fraction_ of the fury he had for her.

***

Billy was supposed to drop off Max outside one of the neighborhoods across town so that she could go trick-or-treating, but he was glad when he yelled for her from the front room (Neil and Susan were gone for the night, so he wasn’t going to get in trouble for it), and then when she didn’t answer and he pounded on her door, he discovered she’d snuck out on her own.

Whatever. She knew the way back home, or it was a small enough town that someone would be able to help her if she got lost. She was thirteen and could fend for herself – she didn’t need him babysitting her, and he had better things to do.

He was dressed already in his Halloween costume – just his jeans and his leather jacket over a bare chest, because he didn’t have anything else and didn’t really care. He was pretty sure no one would even bother asking, because no one wanted to admit that they were clueless about some movie if it turned out to be something obvious that everyone else knew.

The party wasn’t until eight, but Billy figured he’d go there after visiting El, so he didn’t have to worry about returning to the house to change. As he slid into his Camaro, he checked the time – it was a few minutes after five. He’d probably get to the creepy cabin around five-thirty, which meant he would miss Hopper altogether if he was quick about it – the man didn’t usually get off until six or six-thirty, according to El last time, which put him home around seven at the latest, leaving Billy enough time to make his escape and hopefully go find a place that would sell him alcohol before the party. He was running low in his stash.

He arrived at the cabin in the expected time frame, and carefully stepped over the trip wire he’d discovered last time he was here. It was getting dark, but he was pretty sure he saw movement inside. He didn’t expect El would be gone anyway, shut away with her weird rules as she was.

He rapped on the door lightly, and called, “El, it’s Billy!”

The door immediately swung open, and he blinked a little, because he hadn’t even seen her move but she must have, because she was already over by the couch and it gave the appearance that the door had opened on its own. He shook his head to himself at the thought, because that was impossible, and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

“Billy!” El greeted happily, but he thought he might see some disappointment there and it put his back up a little because he didn’t _have_ to come here.

He was startled when she ran toward him, wrapping him in a tight, quick hug that made him wince as it jostled still tender ribs but also cooled his irritation at the possibility of not actually being welcomed there.

“Thought you wouldn’t come!” El told him, but where he might have expected condemnation from anyone else, it seemed she was simply sharing her past worries, just pleased that they were now gone. Somehow it made him feel worse, but he shoved the feeling aside.

“’Course I’d come,” Billy said with a little scoff, ruffling her hair. “How are you doing?”

“No more bleeding,” she reported unashamedly, which – that wasn’t _exactly_ what he’d been asking, but he supposed it wasn’t _bad_ news.

“Erm – great,” he said, pulling back a little so he could see her better, could try to see if she was stiff anywhere under the baggy clothes that meant she would be hiding bruises or other wounds. “What about Hopper? You get in any trouble with him?”

“No,” El said simply, and the ease with which she said it allowed Billy to believe her.

Then she frowned and looked at the clock sitting on a table in the corner. “Five-three-eight,” she reported, pointing at it. She looked back up at him. “Hop said – five-one-five. Com-pro-mise.” She drew out the syllables like it was an unfamiliar word that she needed to work to remember. “Watch movie. Get fat. He is late.”

Billy frowned at her words, rubbing his chin absently. “Hopper is late?” he said, because if that was the case then he could be back any minute and Billy had been trying to _avoid_ another run-in with the man, so he would probably have to cut this visit even shorter.

“Want – trick-or-treat,” El said with something between a sad frown and a pouting scowl.

“Yeah, I guess that would be a little hard to do if you’re supposed to be this huge secret,” Billy mused with a frown. Poor kid. She was lonely and shut up here and apparently Hopper wasn’t coming back early like he’d compromised – probably to convince her against trick-or-treating – and now she was sad. Unwillingly, he felt bad for her.

But at Billy’s words, El perked up in remembrance, and went running to one of the rooms behind a door. While she was gone, he took in the rest of the cabin, the record player beside him and the TV sitting on a table at the far wall, playing _Frankenstein_ at a low volume. It was homey, he supposed, but it didn’t look like a little girl lived there – it looked like the kind of place a divorced middle-aged man would live in.

El returned before he could settle on how he felt about that, and he almost laughed at the dirty white sheet that she’d tossed over herself, the holes cut out for the eyes.

“Ghost,” she announced.

“Yeah, it’s a good costume, kid,” Billy said, smile tugging at his lips. When he realized what his face was doing, he coughed and reached into his pocket for his smokes. He figured it didn’t matter – it smelled enough like old smoke in the cabin that he was pretty sure Hopper didn’t have some smoking spot outside to keep the inside clean.

“Watch movie with me?” El suggested, plopping down on the couch. Even though he couldn’t see her face, he could hear the hope in her voice, the hope that she wouldn’t be alone while she waited for Hopper to return.

“Yeah, okay,” Billy said, sighing like he was put upon, but he’d planned to be here for a few minutes anyway, so if she wanted to spend that time watching TV with him, it was no skin off _his_ back. He lit his cigarette before walking over to the couch, slipping the lighter back into his pocket as he went. Sitting down and inhaling, he glanced over at El, pointing his face away when he blew out so that the smoke wasn’t attaching itself to her.

“No candy,” El said, glancing around like it might materialize if she kept looking for it long enough.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Billy agreed. “But hey, maybe Hopper will bring some when he finally shows his face.”

“He said – buy candy. Get fat. Watch scary movie. Five-one-five. _Lie_.”

The last word was said with a particular fierceness, a barely hidden pain, and he got that sometimes adults forgot or didn’t understand the importance of a promise to a kid, but Billy found himself angry on her behalf that she’d been let down for what was definitely not the first time – although whether Hopper was the culprit for it most often was uncertain.

“Yeah,” Billy commiserated with her, “Adults are shitty.” He took another drag from his cigarette, looking back at the TV.

They were quiet for a few minutes, Billy puffing his way through his cigarette and telling himself that he’d checked in on her, and she was fine, and he could just leave now and do his own thing. She would be alright; Hopper would be back eventually and she could chew him out if she wanted.

But he stayed there, arguing with himself, occasionally glancing over at the girl still wrapped in that ridiculous sheet as she watched the movie on the screen, until finally he said, “I could take you trick-or-treating, if you want.”

Immediately he wanted to kick himself.

But El turned to him, dragging the sheet away from her face so that he could see her confusion, and said, “Supposed to stay here.”

And something kicked in his chest again at that, something insistent that made him want to make her less lonely, and so he doubled down on his suggestion, deciding to go all in.

“Well, I don’t see Hopper here, making you stay,” he told her airily, waving his hand and trailing smoke around with the movement. “By my reckoning, that means you can do whatever the hell you want.”

El looked uncertainly over at the clock, and at the radio just beside it and what looked like a sheet for Morse code pinned up on the wall. (Jesus, Hopper was paranoid, if _that’s_ how he was communicating with her.) The clock said it was 5:54, almost forty-five minutes since Hopper had apparently promised to be home with no word about how late he might be. Billy suspected the man had forgotten by this point.

“He might – home soon,” she stumbled over the words in her hesitation and doubt.

“How about this,” Billy suggested, getting truly invested in the idea now, “We can hit the nearest neighborhood, and trick-or-treat down one street. If you wanna come back then, at least you got _some_ candy. If you wanna keep going, we can do another street. We don’t have to be out all night – I’d _prefer_ we weren’t, ‘cause I have plans tonight, too.”

El looked uncertain still, looking down at the sheet pooled around her like the answer lay within its folds.

“C’mon,” Billy cajoled, rising to his feet. “You can’t stay in this damn cabin the rest of your life. Live a little.”

El looked up, and he knew before she said anything that she was convinced, because her determined expression said it all. She nodded once, and he grinned around the cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Rad,” he said. “C’mon, let’s get out while the candy is still there.”

“Note?” El suggested innocently, tilting her head. “If Hop comes back.”

Billy snorted at the naïveté inherent in the question and shook his head. “Lesson one, kid: never, _ever_ leave a note when you’re sneaking out. He might come out looking for you before you’re ready to come back and catch you doing what he told you _not_ to do, and then you’ll be in _worse_ shit than before.”

El nodded, clearly a little dubious but trusting his word and seemingly filing the advice away for later. She tossed the sheet over her head, turning and adjusting it so that she was looking out the eye holes again, and Billy resisted the urge to comment on how cute she was. Stubbing out the butt of his cigarette on a dirty plate at the table, he left it behind and opened the door to the cabin, shivering a little as the wind reminded him that the outside world was much colder than the heated one in the cabin.

She got in the passenger seat, and it was strange, a little bit, to be driving with her again. She was quiet, but he could tell that she was more aware than she had been last time, because she wasn’t distracted by the pain this time. She looked around more, curiously examining the random farms they passed, and bouncing her head a little to the beat of the music playing quietly through the speakers. He was vindictively pleased at how she enjoyed Scorpions, because Max used to say all the time that it was only teenage boys who could _possibly_ like this sort of music, but that clearly wasn’t the case because El seemed to like it fine enough.

Then he shoved the thought away, because he was _not_ thinking about Max tonight – not when he was in a decent enough mood.

He pulled up to a street that seemed well-lit enough, with a bunch of kids and parents wandering around trick-or-treating in ridiculous costumes. Most of the kids seemed _very_ young, and he supposed that made sense, considering that although it was dark now, it was just a quarter past six and younger kids would go to bed earlier. But there were enough older kids, and El was pretty short anyway, that he figured they wouldn’t stick out too much there.

He realized as he put the car into park that he had forgotten to tell El to grab a pillowcase or some shit for gathering the candy, so as she got out of the car, he went to the trunk and popped the lid, because he was pretty sure…

Aha. He had a drawstring backpack thing that he kept a stash of socks and a couple of shirts in, and he dumped that out and then turned it inside out, because it would be pretty strange for a little kid to be carrying around a bag with a smoking skull on it, and the black now on the outside was far less noticeable. Closing the lid, he drew around the side of the car to where El was standing, watching the goings-on ahead of her with some measure of amazement.

Handing her the bag, he put a hand on her shoulder to keep her back for a minute, saying once she’d turned to him inquiringly, “Alright, couple of things first. There’s a lot of people, so if you ever feel uncomfortable or want to leave, let me know. We don’t have to go the whole street – this is your party and you can cry if you want to. Nevermind,” he waved away the confused look at the reference – it was just as well she didn’t know that damn song that got stuck in his head every time Max sang it.

“Second, I don’t know all the shit you’re into that you have to hide in that cabin. But if anyone tries taking you or makes you feel unsafe or some shit and we’ve been separated, just scream ‘fire’ as loud as you can and run away. People will pay attention real quick and whoever it was will back off because no one wants people to know they’re being sketchy.

“That being said, don’t go too far from me. Make sure you can always see me, and we’ll be fine. When you get to a door, say ‘trick or treat’, and after they give you the candy you say thank you and go to the next house. Got all that?”

El nodded, determination lining her slight form, and Billy might have felt ridiculous at giving her such strict instructions like he was her parent or some shit, but although she was twelve she certainly didn’t act like it. Also, he felt like she was probably grateful for the clear instructions, if her rapt attention was anything to go by. Even last year when he’d gone with Max, she had looked antsy and ran away as soon as she was able, but El seemed to be taking his words to heart.

“Alright, let’s go,” Billy said, glancing at his watch. He didn’t want to be out here for _too_ long, but he also suspected that El would be content with just a few minutes of acting like a normal kid, so he didn’t think the time would be a big deal.

And just as he’d suspected, she seemed to take more joy in walking beside the other kids, hidden in plain sight and feeling like she was one of them as they went to each house, than she did at the receipt of the actual candy.

At a couple of houses, the people handing out candy complimented her on her costume, clearly lying through their teeth, but at least they made the effort for the little girl. When they saw Billy, they curiously asked who the girl dressed as a ghost was, and after the first time when he blurted out that it was his step-sister Max, that their costumes were still kind of lost in the move and this was a last-minute solution, he stuck with it and El easily went along with it.

“Do you really have – sister?” El asked curiously at one point as they trekked their way to the next house, near the end of the road.

“Step sister,” Billy corrected, frowning as he remembered the bitch. And after he’d told himself he wouldn’t think of her tonight, he thought with a sigh to himself. “She’s trick-or-treating somewhere else – some other dorks made friends with her.”

“Friends…” El pondered to herself quietly. After a moment, “You have friends?”

Something twisted in his chest, and he glanced down to see her looking up at him. He grunted, commented, “Didn’t we already establish that _we’re_ friends now?” and looked around to make sure no one had heard him say this to a literal child. His reputation would never recover.

“Friends,” El confirmed, voice pleased as they walked up the steps to another house.

“Sure,” Billy said begrudgingly. “But you spread that around, and I’ll kick your ass, don’t think I won’t.”

A mother passing the other direction as she was leaving the house looked up at him with a shocked gasp that he would say such a thing to a small child of indeterminate age, and hurried her toddler along, but El just giggled at his (probably, admittedly) empty threat.

They went down the next street, but rather than going down both sides of it they just stuck to one, because El was flagging, content with what she’d already experienced so far. They had been trick-or-treating for a little under an hour when they got back to the car, and El settled into the passenger seat, candy haul in her lap and staring out the front window with a small smile as he drove them back to the cabin. She had removed the sheet, letting it drape around her like a cape, and she looked very content with the happenings of the night.

They got back to the cabin at about seven-fifteen, and Billy was simultaneously relieved and angry that Hopper’s car was still missing. He was glad El wouldn’t be dealing with an angry older man who didn’t know where she’d disappeared to, but he was also angry that she had apparently been forgotten for whatever emergency was so damn important that even two hours after he’d said he would be home he was still missing.

“Listen,” Billy said, turning in his seat to look at her before she could get out of the car. “Hopper doesn’t have to know that you went out tonight, alright?”

She frowned a little back at him. “Friends don’t lie,” she said certainly.

“It’s not a lie,” Billy said, hiding his impatience. “Just don’t tell him _everything_. He asks, and just say I came by and watched TV with you. That’s the truth. And hide your candy in your closet or some shit, and he never has to know, alright?”

El frowned thoughtfully at this, and then nodded her head in understanding. “Not lying,” she agreed, and he breathed out a little sigh of relief. He had been prepared to take the brunt of whatever punishment Hopper might dole out for their escapades tonight, but if Hopper wasn’t even there then he didn’t have to know and that could only make it safer for El. He knew she said the guy was good, but he had yet to be fully convinced and would hold off on that confirmation either way for as long as he could manage.

“And, El,” he said as she put her hand on the door to get out. She turned to look at him again. “You ever need anything, I’m there, alright? I’m not kidding – any time.”

He didn’t elaborate on how she could contact him, not too sure of it himself, and she didn’t ask. He didn’t really think that she would need anything, but he would keep watch around these parts just in case, if she ever went wandering around again in search of help. If he thought it was safe to give her the home phone number, he would, but he really couldn’t trust that it wouldn’t piss off Neil if he found out about any part of this, so keeping watch would have to do.

El’s gaze tracked over his face, seemingly searching for something there, and she seemed to find it, because after a moment her serious expression gave way as she gave him a nod and a smile.

“Thank you, Billy,” she said, and then got out of the car, clutching her candy haul and sheet to her as she made her way back to the lonely cabin.

Billy sat there, for some reason feeling the need to watch to be sure that she would get inside safely. The door closed behind her, and he scoffed mentally as he backed away from the cabin.

 _Going soft, Hargrove,_ he sneered to himself, and glanced at the clock on the dash. He would have just enough time to get across town to this Tammy’s party and show up just a few minutes late. He was in the mood for some shitty beer and simple high school hierarchy.

He floored it when he got to the paved road, the cabin disappearing behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite El costume was literally when she showed up with that ridiculous sheet to be a ghost for Halloween. It was adorable and I projected that onto Billy, lol. The costume begged to be used again, and thus this fic worked.
> 
> Also, the relationship between Billy and Max will definitely improve. Right now he's just very hurt and because he's sixteen that's manifesting as anger but he will definitely forgive her. This series is not meant to be an El-replaces-Max type deal. Right now Billy is just protective of this random kid. Big brother Billy is my favorite, and before long he's going to have _two_ little sisters and he won't really be mad about it. XD I have so many plans for how it's going to go, and I'm so ridiculously excited for it!
> 
> Hope you liked it - I thrive on your comments! <3


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